


Can't Keep Doing This

by Lenore



Category: LA Confidential
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-02
Updated: 2008-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone in LA has a car. Except Bud White.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Keep Doing This

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [难以为继](https://archiveofourown.org/works/596046) by [styx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/styx/pseuds/styx)



Everyone in L.A. has a car. Everyone except Bud White, who turns up on the Greyhound from Bisbee one dusty Wednesday afternoon, alone, no explanations, and apparently determined to remain footloose and automobile-free.

"I can't keep doing this," Ed says every morning when he comes to pick him up at the grubby by-the-week motel where he's staying.

Bud shrugs. "Don't expect you to."

He reaches for the radio, makes a face at the Mozart that comes wafting out, fiddles with the dial until he finds something that suits him. _A beggar for your kisses…_ Ed recognizes the song from some other morning's ride.

Bud sprawls in the passenger seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Ed can see his casually flung leg, the shape of his thigh beneath his trousers. Bud drums his fingers in time with the beat, and the vibration travels across the dash and up Ed's arms and rattles around inside him, an unnerving buzz under his skin that makes the sweat break out on his forehead.

It's only because it's warm outside, he tells himself.

But the buzz doesn't go away. He feels the reverberation of it all day: when he's reviewing the monthly manpower reports, smirking his way through another pissing match with the brass, standing back to back with Bud White, shotgun in hand, taking down an illegal gambling operation, their third one this month. They always have made a good team.

There's endless paperwork waiting for him when he gets back to the station. He stays at it until well past dinnertime, and he half hopes Bud will give up, catch a ride with someone else. When he comes out of his office, jacket folded neatly over his arm, he's half relieved to find Bud still lounging at his desk.

"I can't keep doing this," he insists nonetheless.

Bud gets to his feet, smiling lazily. "So you've said."

Ed stares straight ahead at the road the whole drive home. Bud has the radio on again, the tap-tap-tap of his fingers, and it's like they're sending telegraphic messages to Ed's skin. At last, he pulls up, shuts off the car, lets out his breath. Only then does he realize that he's parked outside his own house, and Bud is still sitting in the passenger seat next to him, not the way this is supposed to go.

Bud raises an eyebrow. Timing is everything, every good cop knows that. Knows that sometimes a second is all you've got to keep a situation from going to hell. A second is all Ed needs to bluff his way through this, bluster out a complaint about how overworked he is or toss off a casual _I assumed you could use a decent meal_, something, anything, that makes this seem less like the Freudian slip it actually is.

"Uh," Ed stutters, his face going hot.

Sometimes a second is all it takes. Bud stills, and Ed can feel the explosive potential charging in the air, can almost smell it, like the sky before an electrical storm. There's a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and nowhere to go in the close confines of the car. It won't be the first time Bud White has beaten him all to hell, he reconciles himself.

Bud catches him in the jaw, but not with his fist. He pulls Ed around to him and pushes their mouths together. Ed is caught off balance. Maybe he always is when there's kissing involved, but certainly when it's Bud White doing it. Bud's thumb presses under his chin, and his lips move firmly until Ed finally thinks to kiss back.

He's panting by the time Bud pulls away, blinking owlishly, his glasses knocked askew. Bud is…laughing.

Ed presses his mouth into a thin line, feels the heat flooding his face. Then he's grabbing Bud by the collar, yanking hard, biting kisses onto his lips. He grapples at Bud's shoulders, manhandling him closer, the molecules between them simmering with uncivilized possibilities. There's going to be violence, Ed thinks. And it's going to be the best he's ever had.

They grunt and paw at each other and Bud shoves a knee between Ed's thighs, making him see stars. It takes Ed far longer than it should to consider the neighbors, to disentangle himself and slump back in his seat. Heat prickles beneath his collar, and his lungs feel like they're burning. His belly is clenched so tight with want it hurts.

"You can't keep doing this, huh?" Bud smirks. "For a college boy, you're not too smart sometimes."

Ed turns to glare, but Bud is already opening the door, sliding out of the car. He starts up the front walk, stops, and looks back. The expression on his face is familiarly goading, _you gonna do something about this or you just gonna sit out there all night like a cowardly fuck?_

Bud White has been making Ed want to take stupid chances since the moment they first crossed paths. He throws the car door open and scrambles after him. He's not sure he would have it any other way.


End file.
